


Flair

by AetherAria



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: (but only technically... you could prolly imagine him as a lizard still just as easily, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Human Lord Arum (Penumbra Podcast), Multi, Penumbra Pride Week, Penumbra Pride Week Day 1, Pride Parades, Second Citadel (Penumbra Podcast), and all you'd have to do is sub out his frill flaring for the flushing lol)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 08:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19247413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AetherAria/pseuds/AetherAria
Summary: Damien and Rilla are ecstatic to be out enjoying themselves at Pride, but their third is a bit more uncomfortable with the whole thing.





	Flair

**Author's Note:**

> COMING IN CLUTCH, good lord, I wrote this SO FAST because i was DESPERATE not to miss out on this whole awesome Pride Week thing. Anyway, poor Arum is a shy, private, easily embarrassed dorkus who only really cares about the opinions of two people in the world, so- this, I guess? <3<3

Arum is beginning to regret agreeing to this. He tugs awkwardly at the sleeves of his button-down, the cacophony of the crowd around him making his shoulders climb towards his ears as he waits for his partners to return. Someone nearby meets his eyes and _winks_ , and Arum pulls his head back, pointedly looks away, and decides that he _definitely_ regrets this.

He’s so busy avoiding eye contact after that, he doesn’t see Rilla barreling back over until she’s at his side, grinning widely through her face-paint and dragging a pleased (if a little overwhelmed) Damien behind her.

“Here!” She presses something cool and metal into his palm, but she doesn’t give him time to react or look before she continues in a breathless, chipper rush, “Since you didn’t have anything of your own to wear. I found an aro-ace one for Tal, too, I think I saw him back the other way- I wanna bring it to him but, I’ll come back, okay?” Her grin, somehow, grows wider, and he’s dazzled enough by it that he can’t find his words as she rocks up onto the balls of her feet to give him a kiss on the cheek, and then his own cheeks flush dark while she bolts away again.

Damien stands by his side and watches her go, bemusement clear on his face, and then finally Arum opens his hand to see what she gave him.

It’s a pin, steel and hard enamel the size of a silver dollar, shaped like a heart. It’s striped down one side in pink and purple and blue, and down the other in yellow-white-purple-black, and Arum drags a thumb over the textured face of it as Damien watches him.

“She couldn’t find one that had those two _and_ the poly colors,” he says with a wry smile, “but she certainly tried. Do you-” he pauses, “do you like it?”

“It’s-” Arum squeezes the metal between his fingers, very aware of the color in his cheeks. “It’s- _fine_.”

“Fine?” Damien tilts his head, his expression falling. “You don’t-” he bites his lip. “Rilla thought that, perhaps, you would want to…” he trails off, gesturing vaguely to the bi flag he is currently wearing as a cape, “to don a little… _flair_ of your own. To get into the spirit of things.”

“It’s not- I don’t-” Arum snaps his jaw shut, huffing out an irritated breath. He isn’t even sure why this is making him so uncomfortable, but there’s something about this many people- this many eyes- and he’s only here in the first place because Amaryllis and Damien are so enthusiastic about it. Arum is only who he is. He always has been. And, aside from Damien and Amaryllis, “it’s no one’s _business_ ,” he says finally, emphatically.

Damien blinks, lowering his head. “W-well- of course, if you don’t _want_ to- that is to say, you don’t need to- to wear it. If you don’t want to. If it- if it embarrasses you.”

Arum nearly hurts his neck in the process of whipping his head towards Damien, a snide defense already rising to his lips, but when he looks at him-

Arum sees the way Damien is standing, one arm crossed over his chest and gripping his other bicep, his shoulders hunched, the curve of his neck as he looks down and away, all of it screaming the tension and worry and dejection he is struggling and failing not to show, and Arum realizes too late what his words must have seemed like, to Damien.

It must seem like Arum is embarrassed by him. By the both of them. And _that_ , Arum finds, is intolerable.

Arum closes the gap, putting his arms around Damien’s shoulders underneath his cape and pulling him close. “I’m- sorry, honeysuckle. I’ll wear it.”

“You don’t _have_ to-”

“I want to,” he says firmly. “This entire…” he wrinkles his nose, but he’s smiling now. “The crowds and the noise and the- _enthusiasm_ , it isn’t exactly my _scene_.” He overly emphasizes his last word, drawing it out into extra syllables, and he’s gratified when Damien gives a little laugh. “And I don’t care what others think of me. But- but I am _proud_ ,” he says, flushing with the strain of saying something so earnest in _public_. “Proud to be with the two of you. How could I not be?”

Damien smiles so sweetly that Arum could almost forget where they are. Arum _doesn't_ care what other people think of him, but- he does care quite a lot, actually, about Damien and Amaryllis, about what they think and feel. After a moment, Damien's smile slips from sweet to downright tender, and when he leans up, Arum leans down.

When their lips part again, Damien says, “You still should not feel obligated, if you don’t-”

Arum interrupts by leaning back, his expression pointed as he affixes the pin to his shirt and then gestures towards it. “I want to wear it, honeysuckle,” he says, and then he takes Damien’s hand in his own, determined not to let it go again. “Now, come. I believe it’s time we retrieve our doctor. If I’m going to be doing this _Pride_ thing correctly, I think I should be holding her hand as well.”


End file.
